Of Memento Mori
by Meredith T. Tasaki
Summary: When love was all she thought she'd ever need... Short little season-finale filler...


Disclaimer: "Third Watch" belongs to... Whoever owns it. I should know. John Wells or something? Doesn't really matter. Eh heh. The line "When love was all she thought she'd ever need" is from Montgomery Gentry's "Hell Yeah"-- I know, don't get much more incongrous than that. The other quote is, as you probably know, from Johnny Cash's "Hurt"-- assuming that everyone reading this is a Third Watch fan, you couldn't have helped but heard it at the beginning of that episode with the intervention...  
  
Note: Just a little one-shot. Watched the season finale last night-- just when the new season is probably about to start in two weeks, wonderful timing-- and, as I was trying not to think about the essay I had to write, I eagerly welcomed this idea. Turns out I've finished 'em both. I was _looking_ for a good quick one-shot....  
  
Summary: All you need is love... And when you lose it...  
  
~  
  
Some days are just inherently bad; nothing you can do to change it. You wake up and know it can't get better; you just hope that also means that it can't get worse...  
  
She smiled faintly as she got the glass. She knew what her daughter would say if she could see this. She'd know better than to attack her directly; no, she'd just look at her, and sigh, and say, "Come on, Mom. There've gotta be faster ways to kill yourself."  
  
Was that what she was trying to do? She didn't know. Hell, she didn't want to.  
  
She took a puff of the cigarette and sat back down with her drink. Something new on the television set-- an accident?  
  
No. No. She didn't want to see that today. She wanted-- hell, she didn't know what she wanted, but for right now, sitting here and drinking while watching old cartoons looked close enough to fill in.  
  
So she changed the channel. But that wasn't an old cartoon. That was one of those weird new ones-- looked like a bunch of hampsters or something-- weird as hell. Damnnation. Where else could you find nostalgia this time of day?  
  
She thought of that channel that showed all the old TV shows, then grimaced. She HATED sitcoms, particularly old ones, and the odds were astronomical that they'd be showing anything else.  
  
Maybe music. She tried one of those. No, way too new.   
  
"When love was all  
  
She thought she'd ever need..."  
  
That gave her pause. Then she saw that the woman in the video was unbuttoning her shirt and starting to dance on the bar. She smirked--there went the insight.  
  
(Hmm... All you need is love.) She actually had never been that big a believer in love. All right, that was a huge understatement. Until she'd found it, that was...  
  
Look at herself. Watching country music videos, drinking too much, and smoking. When the hell had that happened to her?  
  
Oh sure. She knew damn well when it had happened. She knew damn well...  
  
...And, she dimly noticed, the video had changed. Wait--was that Johnny Cash? He was still in the business? No way.  
  
Then, apparently there was a way-- that was him, his voice, but so damn _old_... When had he gotten so damn old?  
  
What the hell was it, rhetorical question day?  
  
And now _she_ felt old, just watching the video. One good thing about celebrities, they could be one hell of a memento mori. As if she needed a reminder. A reminder...  
  
His voice was old, but not decrepit--no. It still had that _something_ that made a great singer a great singer. Who knew exactly what it was?  
  
"Everyone I know  
  
Goes away  
  
In the end..."  
  
Depressing. Like she needed _that_. (No thanks, I can get down enough to drink and smoke at the same time all on my own...)  
  
She flipped back to the news. Something about an accident, an explosion... Now they were reporting a paramedic and a firefighter hurt.  
  
(God.) Her heart sank. (As if the day wasn't turning out bad enough...)  
  
Any firefighter's death still hurt a lot... Paramedics still, too. Damn these news reports. Every time she heard one, she couldn't be sure... Was today the day she'd lose someone else? Or was she being paranoid?   
  
(God grant me the grace to at least not outlive my children...)  
  
She sighed, feeling tired, and even older than she had. (Love...) she thought. (Love may be all you need. But when you lose _that_...)  
  
(When you lose that...)  
  
She took another puff of her cigarette, drank a little more, looked at the screen.  
  
And then the doorbell rang.  
  
She barely even had to look at their faces. She knew.  
  
And it was going to be a hell of a punch when she wasn't so damned tired. Too tired to think about it, too tired to do anything but _know_...  
  
Wearily, she gestured them in. Denying it would cost her so much more. ("Everyone I know...")  
  
She sat down, let it go, and prepared herself to let them say it out loud.  
  
(Will the circle be unbroken?)  
  
"What's happened?" she asked. And even through it all, a tinge of worry sharpened her voice.  
  
~ 


End file.
